


Paint Yourself

by SincerelyYourNightmare



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Autistic James T. Kirk, Character Study, Gen, James T. Kirk Has Issues, Jim is a Little Shit, Kid Jim, POV James T. Kirk, Please read Warnings at the beginning of the chapters, Pre-Canon, Some Swearing, When do I ever do anything other than character studies?, and also Not Okay, be prepared for sadness, could be read as, touch sensitivity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyYourNightmare/pseuds/SincerelyYourNightmare
Summary: Screaming at the world seemed thematically appropriate, so that’s what Jim did.On the road to finding himself, Jim Kirk collected many experiences. Some slightly more alarming than others.
Kudos: 15





	1. Age 4

**Author's Note:**

> This is my procrastination project. I'm currently still writing Old Stars and that's still a thing that's happening, but I just needed to write something else. Even more angst, apparently.
> 
> Please read the Warnings and tell me in the comments if they aren't sufficient.

**Age 4**

[Warnings: Dissociative episode, implications of child abuse, verbal abuse, aborted panic attack, Jim's not-great childhood]

On Jim’s fourth birthday, the teacher stood at the front of the class and talked about Jim’s Dad. How he sacrificed his life for so many people, how he’s a hero, how he’s such a great man, how he was a captain for ten minutes, how he used those ten minutes to save so many people. And then he died.

By the end of the lesson, Jim wasn’t sure if he was still in the room. His legs felt like they were crossed, and he could feel the carpet underneath them, but they were also far away. Murmuring of the class gave way to a single voice somewhere around Jim, calling his name, but it just felt like it wasn’t his name and he was in the next room over. Maybe he _was_ in the next room, class 1B. He would like that. Veronica from 1B told Jim in the playground earlier that they were doing painting all day. They were supposed to paint themselves. 

Jim would like to paint. But he wouldn't paint himself. He would paint the stars.

The single voice got quiet and then Jim felt someone press on his shoulder from under three duvets, the touch was so distant. Jim’s body stood up without his input and the light hand on his shoulder pushed him towards the door, helping him navigate past the desks. Jim saw and didn’t see the door close behind him on the confused faces of his classmates. 

1A was usually the quiet one; it was 1B who had all the troublemakers. 1A had never had to put someone outside the door as punishment. Was Jim a troublemaker? 

Jim stood in front of the door and tried not to make a sound. If he was quiet, maybe he would be let back in. Maybe they would tell him what he did wrong and he would promise not to do it again and they wouldn’t tell Frank and the teacher would lead him back in by the shoulder and Jim wouldn’t be a troublemaker anymore. 

Miss was in front of him. She was crouching and making noises at him. Jim tried really hard to look at her and listen, but whenever an adult spoke to him straight on it was Frank and he was telling Jim how he should be grateful he’s here at all, be grateful, boy, I coulda let you go into foster with your Ma fucking off to who-knows-where, we ain’t even married, got no obligations. 

Jim was trembling and he bit his lip so he wouldn’t start crying and then there was something sticky and warm in his mouth and it tasted weird. Miss was touching Jim again, but this time Jim felt it too much, his skin was so raw it was like his whole body was the skinned knee he got yesterday after falling onto tarmac from the climbing frame. Jim whimpered and flinched, then cringed. Boys don’t cry. Jim ain’t crying.

Miss didn’t touch him again. She stood in front of him and held out the end of her belt. Jim took it automatically and almost stumbled when it got pulled out of his hand. Miss came back and handed him the belt end again. 

Jim didn’t like belts. Frank always put his hand on his belt when he was saying ‘boys don’t cry’. Jim wasn’t stupid, he knew Frank wanted to do something to Jim so he wouldn’t cry, but Frank always stopped at the belt-touching. Belts were a threat. Belts were dangerous. 

Miss tugged on the belt. It was a gentle, soft tug, like her voice. Jim didn’t know what she wanted, other than for him to hold the belt. Jim didn’t want to touch it, but she was asking, so he did it. He didn’t want to be a troublemaker. He wanted to go back into class. He wanted to paint the stars. 

Jim tugged back, gently. There was a little tinkle, like a dropped bell, except it came from Miss. Jim looked up in astonishment. She’d laughed. Very quietly, but it happened. Jim hadn’t heard an adult laugh since Ma-

Miss tugged on the belt a few more times and finally Jim’s brain switched on. She was trying to get him to move. Without touching him. Because he flinched. She saw him hurting and she tried something else. He shuffled forward, one foot in front of the other, staring at his feet just in case they didn’t do what he said. They did that sometimes.

Jim ain’t crying. 

Miss led him to the infirmary. Jim could tell because the floor changed to that white, speckled linoleum that’s so easy to clean. Miss didn’t let go of the belt. She did fumble with it a bit so she could type something into her padd, but she didn’t let go. Miss led Jim over to a bed and patted it. Jim used the stepladder and hopped on. He’d done this before. 

Jim didn’t feel like his body was his knee anymore. His clothes were still itchy, but they always were. His head felt like it weighed more than _two_ melons, but that happened when he was tired. Jim didn’t know when he had become tired, but he was so tired now; Jim knew if he slumped sideways, he would fall straight sleep. 

Miss was talking at him again, and this time Jim could make out the tone. She was saying something slow and soothing, like Ma used to do before bedtime. It was safe. Miss patted the pillow on the bed. Jim shook his head – he wasn’t going to sleep in an infirmary bed, they were for sick people – but that made him feel like he’d throw up, so he stopped and tried to breathe. 

Miss was still making soothing noises. She patted the pillow again. This time, Jim gave in and slumped sideways. If he wanted to throw up, maybe he was sick, after all. 

He was still holding the end while he was drifting further and further away from his body. Miss’s belt wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t leather: some synth material. It was plaited and had flowers on it, Jim saw. That wasn’t so bad. Like Miss. She wasn’t so bad. Jim hoped she didn’t think he was a troublemaker now. Jim just wanted to paint the stars.


	2. Age 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam always told Jim how much he looked like Dad, but he never told Jim how he _didn’t_ look like Dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is maybe even more heart-wrenching than the first chapter. Read carefully.

**Age 5**

[Warnings: Implications of child abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, upsetting discussions of identity, descriptions of dissociation] 

On Jim’s fifth birthday, Sam ran away. 

[During Jim’s slightly more mature days after Nero, he often thought of Sam and his family on Geneva. _His_ home wouldn’t have been destroyed, had Nero succeeded. Jim’s brother’s home hadn’t been on Earth for a long time. 

He might even have been able to see the new black hole, in a few decades, from Geneva’s surface. Swallowing the Solar system in a snake-strike gulp, the surrounding suns and their trapped planets blinking out in the stomach of utter darkness. The unhinged jaw of cosmic implosion wouldn’t have reached Geneva for another few centuries. Maybe a millennium. Sam’s home was safe.] 

Sam’s home on Earth hadn’t been safe. On Jim’s fifth birthday, on the fifth Kirk Remembrance Day, Sam packed his bag, disabled the tracker on Frank’s car, and used the auto-drive option to get to the train station. 

It was the best time to do it. Everyone was expected to be at school (except Jim, who was excused), learning about George Kirk’s sacrifice, like they even knew what that word meant. Those not at school were distracted by parties and Starfleet recruitment teams. Frank was at the pub, having gotten a lift from a friend. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave his antique car in the parking lot overnight. 

But he _was_ stupid enough to leave his car keys on the highest shelf in the bookcase, thinking that his two charges wouldn’t even know to look for them. He was stupid enough to ignore Sam in the evenings, which was when Sam would sneak into the garage and teach himself how to drive, just in case. He was stupid enough to always leave the bank account details and cred-sticks in the child-proofed locker that the brothers had taught themselves to open ages ago. He was stupid enough to let Jim stay at home with only Sam to watch him, thinking that they wouldn’t dare to do anything because they hadn’t before. 

Frank should have known that quiet didn’t mean obedient. 

Jim helped Sam pack his bags. His brother was five years older than him, which was an unreachable distance at their respective ages, but they knew they only had each other. Frank wasn’t there for them, even when he was present. 

Jim stuffed his own favourite cap into the outside pocket when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t want Sam to forget him; it was best to leave a reminder. All they had of Dad was technically Ma’s, and even Sam, who was old enough to remember Dad’s face, steadily forgot what he looked like. 

Sam always told Jim how much he looked like Dad, but he never told Jim how he _didn’t_ look like Dad. Did his nose have the same slope as Jim’s, or was that something he got from Ma? What about his eyebrows, had they been slightly darker than his blond hair, too? Did he even have blond hair or did that come from Ma? Did Jim even look anything like Dad, or were they seeing him as an overlay on top of Jim’s face?

Jim didn’t think it was fair to be seen as George Kirk’s clone at age five. Especially since Sam was technically more like George; he had Dad’s _name_. But that’s what Ma and Sam saw. They saw Dad’s face and never tried to look beneath, at Jim. It was like George Kirk had split into two people when he died, split into his two sons. The one with the name and the one with the face. 

That’s why Sam had to leave. Ma’s house had become Frank’s house. And Frank wanted nothing of Dad to remain. Not his pictures, not his name – that’s why Sam was Sam and not George – and definitely not his sons. Frank couldn’t get rid of George’s sons, though, or people would ask questions. 

So, Sam decided he would leave. If Frank wanted them gone, then Sam would leave. But he couldn’t take Jim. Jim thought it was stupid, that he could run away just fine, that he wouldn’t slow Sam down. Sam had sat down on Jim’s bed one night and told him wetly that he wanted Jim to be safe. Being in new places every day, being on the road and maybe not getting enough to eat wasn’t safe. 

The known was safe. The house was safe. It just wasn’t safe for Sam, apparently.

Jim thought Sam was stupid. What made his brother think Jim was going to be safe with Frank when he hadn’t been safe before? He would be infinitely safer with Sam than without him. They were the Kirk boys, they were together. 

But then, on Jim’s fifth birthday, Sam trudged down the stairs, into the garage, and heaved his backpack into the passenger seat. Jim’s body was on the steps leading back to the house, but his ghost helped Sam run away. Jim sat, feeling like he was floating along beside Sam as he made his preparations. Opening the garage doors, starting the engine, checking his backpack one last time. Jim sat on the steps and looked over Sam’s shoulder and wanted to ask him to stop. Wanted to ask Sam to take him away. Don’t leave.

But his mouth wouldn’t move, and his eyes weren’t focussed anymore, so he didn’t notice Sam standing in front of him until he was a foot away. Sam hesitated, then put his palm on Jim’s head. He pressed down and ruffled the already unruly straw-coloured tufts. Jim wanted to reach up to feel if they really were straw, but his arms were too heavy. Maybe he was a scarecrow, his skeleton made of stiff sticks, full of nothing but straw, and the only place it spilled out of him was on his head. 

Jim wished he were a scarecrow. Scarecrows didn’t feel things and they only had one job. Nowadays, most corvids weren’t even scared of the pseudo-people in the fields anymore, so their job wasn’t very effective. But people still put up scarecrows. It didn’t matter that they were useless, that they were a memory of an earlier time. They were allowed to be useless and ineffective and they didn’t get shouted at for being what they were. And they didn’t feel things. 

When Sam lifted his hand from his hair, Jim wished really hard that it was straw. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could be a scarecrow. His scalp was tingling really bad, so maybe his hair was already beginning its transformation. 

His brother didn’t say anything as he walked back to the car. That was what their relationship was about. Companionable silence. Understanding without words. 

Sam understood that he would be leaving his brother in Frank’s clutches, that it would hurt Jim, but he would leave anyway. Jim understood that Sam was leaving, but Jim didn’t know if he wanted Sam to stay or never come back. 

Jim knew lots of words and he knew the one for Sam. Selfish. Sam was thinking of Sam first and no one else second. Jim knew the word for himself, too. Coward. The one who didn’t dare do something because they were scared. Jim didn’t say anything because he was scared, and he wanted to be a scarecrow so he wouldn’t be scared.

With the roar of the engine a distant rattle, Jim shook and trembled and didn’t stand up. 

Come morning, Sam was back in the house. It wasn’t home, because home was safe, and the house wasn’t safe. For either of them. 

Frank had had to take a taxi and he yelled at Sam for making him waste money once they were back from the police station. Frank picked Sam up from the police station adjacent to the train station – Sam hadn’t thought of that. The officers had seen him sitting by himself on the platform and hadn’t bought his excuses. Jim was five and he could lie really well. Sam was ten and he could lie like the Earth could stop spinning. 

Sam wasn’t allowed to leave the house, which was double punishment, because Jim couldn’t leave either, with his baby-sitter under house arrest. Sam mostly locked himself in his room. Jim understood that; he locked himself in his own room sometimes just so Frank couldn’t lock him in from the outside. When he was around, Sam didn’t meet his eyes. His eyes didn’t look at things anymore; they just stared past them at some distant dimension that only Sam had access to. 

They still ate dinners together. They still sat in each other’s rooms in silence sometimes, the door locked from the inside. But Sam, Jim’s brother, wasn’t there anymore. 

Sam really was quiet, now. Quiet _and_ obedient. He studied in his room. He made breakfast for the three of them. He flinched whenever Frank looked at him while touching his belt. 

Jim discovered hatred age five. Jim began hating belts. And Frank. But not Sam. He understood Sam too much to ever hate him. 

Quiet and secretly not obedient wasn’t a secret anymore. Quiet and obedient had taken Jim’s brother from him. 

So, Jim decided he was going to be loud. Really loud. And rebellious. The opposite of Sam. After all, they were the two split parts of George Kirk. 

Sam was George Kirk’s silence. And Jim was George Kirk’s fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to you if you caught the Egyptian Mythology reference. I didn't do it on purpose, but then it just fit so well.


	3. Age 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim was alone. And he was driving like a fucking maniac.

**Age 11**

[Warnings: implications of suicidal thoughts, bad coping mechanisms, descriptions of dissociation, child abuse, unhealthy thought processes]

Screaming at the world seemed thematically appropriate, so that’s what Jim did. He hollered and yelled and swerved all over the road in Dad’s car because he’d never learned how to drive carefully. He’d learned from the net. Sam had refused to teach him. But Sam was gone; he got a scholarship for a biology degree and fucked off to a dormitory. 

Jim was alone. And he was driving like a fucking maniac. 

Frank’s vitriol got blasted at him via the call he had stupidly accepted. Why had he answered? He knew it was Frank. No one else even knew Jim existed. Jim, who wasn’t George Kirk’s son. 

That was one good thing from Sam leaving at last, like he always wanted to; they weren’t George Kirk’s leftovers anymore. Sam was a genius, a scientist. And Jim was finally Jim. _Frank_ would never mistake him for George Kirk, that’s for damn sure. 

Whatever the world thought they knew about Jim Kirk – and George Kirk, for that matter – Jim didn’t care. Jim cared about feeling alive. 

Johnny from the class above was walking home from the arcade, like a shmuck. He didn’t even look before he stuck out a thumb, but Jim didn’t stop, or even slow down, so they were even. His shocked face would be a treasured memory, Jim was sure of it. The douche hadn’t offered to let Jim go to the arcade with Johnny and his friends even _once_. They had been neighbours all their lives! Well, as neighbourly as you could get when your house was surrounded by miles of corn fields. 

Of course Jim knew where the ravine was. Everyone in town went to the ravine to have an illegal beer and have an illegal litter. There was probably a sentient being growing at the bottom, made of empty bottles and cans, its blood an oozing mixture of alcohol and rock dust. Even Sam had been there; that’s why Jim knew where it was. 

He made the turn without thinking too deeply about it. Frank had sounded really mad about ‘his car’ and the constable android was about to execute its ‘stop the car forcefully’ subroutine and Jim just wanted to keep feeling alive. 

Stealing Dad’s car had always been part of the plan. When Sam left, once again in silence, Jim had momentarily been silent, too. The familiar floating feeling had lifted Jim’s ghost from his body for three days. Frank had been ecstatic in his bullying way. He celebrated having gotten rid of one of George’s sons by going out with friends at the end of the week. 

Jim had waited for the pick-up. Had waited a full half-hour for all the usual sounds of the farm to reappear. Then, he went to the safe in Frank’s room and cracked the code. It wasn’t that hard; Frank was stupid. Took the keys, left the money. 

Jim didn’t want money that was actually Ma’s money. Winona’s money. Winona, who had been on planet for four months out of eleven years, total. Who had spent every single one of Jim’s birthdays away from him. Who had never seen him as anything other than George Kirk's son. 

Maybe he deliberately left the tracker working. Maybe he just forgot. Jim didn’t think about it. When the car registered that it was being taken out of the garage and into sunlight without Frank’s authorisation, it freaked out. Jim made it calm down. He was good at calming machines. 

It was too late to keep the alarm from sounding on Frank’s phone, though. Before Frank called, Jim had ten glorious minutes where it was just him on the driveway and then the open road. He had walked this road for years to get to school – no way was Frank going to drive him after what Sam did – but somehow, it was different in the car. 

That gnawing feeling inside Jim was overwhelmed by the feeling of freedom. His hair was getting whipped from side to side, his eyes were watering, and he didn’t care. 

Every day, that gnawing kept eating away at Jim. Nibbling a little at his eyes – too blue – biting off a piece of his voice – “George Kirk was born and bred in Iowa, you could hear it” – chewing obnoxiously at Jim’s interests – “Oh, I knew George from when he came here to get that classic ride of his fixed, how can I help you, son?”. 

Every assignment at school wanted to shape him into someone he hadn’t chosen to be. Every laugh with a classmate felt hollow, a replica of what Jim wanted a laugh to be. His laugh was an echo of a laugh. Jim was an echo of a dead man. 

But on the road… oh, Jim was alive. Just the purring environment-destroying motor, the pressure on the pedals and that open road that Jim had to stare at through the steering wheel. Movement was freedom. Maybe Sam had had the right idea all along. 

Running away felt like running towards something if you didn’t think too hard about it. 

But then there was the ravine. Jim hadn’t made up his mind on what to do once he got there, but he kept accelerating anyway. The police android was ten metres behind. Jim kept his foot on the pedal. Then, five metres from the edge, his heart in his ears, Jim roared. 

His hands grabbed the clutch, his feet switched pedals and he was spinning. 

Jim had never felt so alive as in that spin. 

His body jumped.

His fingers made claws, all his nails getting bloodied on the stones. His shirt would be ruined. Even when he was hanging on the very edge and scrambling up, Jim felt alive. There was no fear. Jim Kirk wasn’t a coward. 

There was a muffled boom. The car was a bit more than scratched. It was a contribution to the sentient being at the bottom of the ravine. An offering. There was a lot more than metal within that car. Jim had offered his own fear to the ravine. His loathing of Frank. His obligation to be George Kirk’s son. 

Jim spared a thought for his brother: if this was enough to get him to call. But then Jim remembered that he didn’t have Sam’s comm number and Frank was never going to willingly ring him up, so who was going to tell him?

The bike ride to the police station had them pass the exit that led to Frank’s house. Jim let go of the android to stick a middle finger up in its direction. 

Frank was incandescent with rage. Jim had seen those exact words in a book before, but never seen them in action until now. Frank was red-faced and incoherent: not even a full sentence at any time from the holding cell to the front door. He even paid the taxi while trying to force out words. 

When they both walked in, Jim turned to see Frank abort a move that would have had him touching his belt. Except, there were no belts in the house anymore. Jim had stolen every single one and buried them in a field four miles away. Frank had woken in the morning and ranted furiously at Jim and Sam. Drone-ordering a new one was unsuccessful, because Jim had learned to hack the drone frequency while he was tinkering in the barn, so they all got redirected to Jim’s barn first. He buried those two new ones with the others. Frank didn’t mention it and never tried again. 

Jim stood, looking blankly at Frank trying and failing to shout intimidatingly without his belt. The beast was declawed; Jim’s fear of him was fiery litter at the bottom of the ravine. Jim wasn’t even listening; there was no point. Jim’s familiar trick of making voices sound like just so much noise was very useful, but it also left Jim a little adrift. 

Frank eventually motioned for Jim to go upstairs, mumbling something about house arrest for eternity. Jim stood still for another ten seconds, just to punch home that what Frank wanted meant nothing to him. Then, he went upstairs and locked the door from the inside. 

That alive-feeling from earlier had faded into memory already. Jim knew he would try to relive that moment in the future, it was too good a feeling. But it would never feel as good as that first time, Jim was certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that for now. Might continue this into adulthood later.  
> Please tell me if you liked getting your heart shredded even more than it was since you saw kid-Kirk jump out of that Corvette the first time.


	4. Age 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim wasn’t used to being honest, even to himself.

**Age 13**

[Warnings: Ableism, mention of panic attacks]

Jim wasn’t stupid. Jim was many things, but not stupid. 

Some days he _wanted_ to be stupid, to believe the propaganda that was masquerading as news nowadays, to be content with learning things alongside his classmates following that painfully slow timetable that always seemed to repeat the same concepts every year. It would be blissfully monotonous. 

Except that that would drive Jim absolutely nuts, so maybe it was for the best that he had authority issues and an inability to concentrate on topics that he had completed months ago. Lately, he had finally become openly defiant of the curriculum. During the quiet time in class, while most of the other children were attempting to comprehend basic algebra or whatever, Jim would work on his code. 

Hacking into the school network was literal child’s play; Jim was deeply concerned for the integrity of the children’s grades. It was one of his more recent interests. Engineering was still his first and largest love, but Jim was not lacking in curiosity, so anything mildly related was fair game too. Hence the hacking.

And the psychology. It paid to be self-aware so that any decisions were made with all causes accounted for. Jim could make fucked up decisions, he reasoned to himself, so long as he knew how and why he was making them. Knowing his issues would help with ignoring and avoiding them. 

What it also did, was challenge him. Jim wasn’t used to being honest, even to himself, so for the first time, he put effort into a project even after it enraged him to violent outbursts. He relished when he was absolutely clueless about his own emotions. It was mostly spite that motivated him by the third month. Jim could, by then, recognise that his motivation came from strange, contrary places. 

Not the languages. Jim had taught himself Spanish and Klingon, beginning when he was 9. The former flowed beautifully from his tongue so that it sounded more like he was singing, while the latter was so pleasantly violent to pronounce that it immediately became Jim’s go-to for cursing. Too bad the teachers could understand the _tone_ , if not the words, of swearing endless and bloody revenge on the clan of the classroom doorstop when he banged it with a toe. 

Jim made his first real friend with a girl a year behind him who came up to him, curled up ball of fury by the gate that he was by lunchtime, and requested that he teach her to swear in a different language. Jim, contrary being that he was, taught her a curse in Spanish, not Klingon. She picked it up within a day, and Jim allowed himself to keep up the contact. It was unlikely that two geniuses would grow up in Backwater, Iowa, but one could hope, right? 

No, incorrect. One could _not_ hope. She moved away three months later, taking her new lexicon of Spanish and Jim’s capacity for friendship with her. The teachers did _not_ like the next few weeks and by the end of his spree of malicious pranks, they pre-emptively gave him detention if they saw him lurking anywhere but by the school gate. 

Teachers also had this amazing ability to pinpoint exactly who started a whisper-conversation while they were trying to lecture. Educating his fellow classmates on biased media consumption and the benefits of becoming a cynic as a preteen was not an acceptable excuse for handing out e-pamphlets to the lower years during break-time, either. 

The amount of times Jim had been sent to sit outside the head teacher’s office was staggering. Not that it really mattered because Frank didn’t give a shit and contacting Admiral Winona Kirk was an exercise in bureaucracy nowadays. Jim spoke from experience. Her secretaries had secretaries, she was _that_ busy, apparently.

His grades didn’t get impacted despite the amount of time he _didn’t_ spend in the classroom, due to the flawlessly innocuous tweaking to his GPA, which Jim conducted from the barn-workshop. He had a feeling that Winona would only ruffle his hair with a smirk if she were there to comment on his new hobby. When she was at home, she emphasised that innovation and improvisation had saved her life more times than she could count. 

She would probably argue that if students could change their own grades, it was a sign that they deserved them. Or something. 

Jim might just be making shit up because he didn’t actually have a clue what kind of person his mother was. It was disappointing to realise that while he had managed to find and, in between panic attacks, learn all that was available to him about George Kirk, there was barely any info in the history books on Winona Kirk. And she sure as shit wasn’t going to open up to a boy who she didn’t even know. 

Blood meant fuck all if you were effectively strangers. 

In a fit of spiteful productivity, Jim skipped a whole week of school and locked himself in the barn with a stash of food and his comm units. When Jim submitted a paper he had written on Klingon greeting structures and their relevance to the greeted party, he got an award. An actual award. It was not well-known, and went to his pseudonym, of course, but Jim couldn’t stop staring at the comm message. 

Jim knew this. It had been mentioned in his psychology research. It was called ‘validation’. It felt good. And also awful. 

His paper was making waves in the diplomatic community, who had been avidly analysing all the Klingon vocabulary they could find to find anything, anything at all about their culture and principles. His paper laid out, bit by bit, the idea that they were extremely tribe-focussed. Every conversation was a conversation not only between individuals, but also between clans. It echoed all over their language, Jim thought, but especially in their greetings. The diplos went mad for it and the discussion it evoked spawned at least twenty follow-up papers.

He expended a lot of willpower on _not_ forwarding anything to Admiral Kirk’s office. 

Then, Jim submitted a paper he had scrummaged together from his own projects on the ‘theoretical’ modification of material replicators to optimise energy consumption to 80% of the most efficient previous models, and the engineering world was poked into a feverish controversy. Jim watched it all unfold via journal commentary and similar papers. Someone posited the idea that the distinction between inorganic and organic replicators was actually simply a mix of a power and coding problem, and a new area of material science was born. 

It was more validation. And this time, Jim didn’t just feel good. He felt… smug. He felt confident. He doubted those stuffy theoretical scientists had made four replicators explode in their barn-workshop, so anything they had to say was to be taken with a ravine full of salt. Nonetheless, Jim was satisfied with his impact on the wider world. Thirteen years old wasn’t bad for being a game-changer. 

Then, of course, he got caught altering his attendance and grade data in the school system and was expelled. 

Winona, infuriatingly predictable, remained incommunicado. Frank had a conniption and, after shouting semi-coherently at relatives in a flurry of comm calls, banished Jim to Tarsus IV.


	5. Age 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim learns to like family and waits for that shoe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double. Word count. Day!
> 
> Whoo! I feel Inspired! Let's see if that holds up for my other stories.

**Age 14**

[Warnings: multiple aborted panic attacks, depression, dissociation]

Jim would like to say that he had known from the get-go that something was off about Tarsus, except that that wasn’t true. In this new chapter of his life, away from Iowa, he had decided to be brutally honest with himself whenever possible, so he had provided a suitably mulish expression for his uncle which dropped the moment the shuttle doors closed. In truth, there was anxiety, excitement, anger, and maybe a little bit of hope hurtling around and around in his head like a whirlpool. 

The trip on the transport ship was uneventful. Unused to being unprompted by either school, homework, or the need to avoid Frank, Jim coasted by the first couple of days on researching about Tarsus. It was a primarily human endeavour. There was farming, colonisation, partial terraforming and lots of research, with new techniques and technology being tested in a giant experiment, all funded by an entrepreneur of anonymous identity. It sounded somehow both boring and epic. Would Jim have to go to school? Or would he be allowed to do his own thing? Was he expected to help with the farming? 

At the Iowa farm, nearly everything was automated; the only reason for Frank’s presence was due to the legal necessity of human oversight over a certain area of land. Even the maintenance came and went without them being impacted, or even _noticing_. Jim knew absolutely nothing about farming, crop yields, or even that much about _biology_! In a fit of panic, Jim spent the rest of the trip bringing himself up to speed on plants, soil and anything about Tarsus IV available on the net. 

On the shuttle down, all electronic instruments were to be shut off due to the ion cloud surrounding the planet. Apparently, they ‘didn’t want to tempt fate’, even though the shuttle had to have heavy shielding to even get through that invisible barrier. Pilots were a superstitious lot if this was representative of all their reasons for doing things. Jim lost his distraction and became extremely twitchy. It came to the point where the steward offered to get an anti-nausea tablet due to the turbulent thoughts washing up onto his face in succession. 

He demurred. Instead, Jim took advantage of their extremely shallow and careful descent to nap. He dreamt of his Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jordan, and little Amy, none of whom he’d met. In the non-reality that dreamscapes usually occurred in, Jim stepped off the shuttle and was led into an exact replica of the Iowa farmhouse that he had grown up in all his life, complete with blank-faced neighbours that turned away and an exact replica of Frank, except that he sported a beard. 

Jim woke himself with the dissonance such a visage inspired in him – he had gotten a picture sent to his padd so he would be able to identify who to go to at the shuttle station. Uncle Jordan did not have a beard and was a head shorter than Frank. He was also dark-haired and had crow’s feet around his eyes. Jordan wasn’t even _related_ to Frank!

Jim did not have time to psychoanalyse himself, because the shuttle was making its final approach. He dawdled a bit, collecting his own belongings and making way for the family of five who seemed to lose a possession every few steps, which would require a pause in the caravan for someone to lift it off the floor, only for someone else to lose their grip on some other article. It would have been funny, if Jim weren’t keyed up to eleven with the knob barely hanging on. 

He did a quick breathing exercise, which lowered his heartrate a perceptible amount, then walked past the family and into the arrival terminal. The first face he looked at was framed by dark hair and had deep crow’s feet. He gazed at those eyes through narrow-framed glasses and watched as they closed slightly into a squint. No wait, that was a smile. 

“Uncle Jordan?” he enquired. His voice was barely above the ambient noise level and Jim closed his mouth to clear his throat except his throat seemed not to have gotten the message and refused to cough or swallow and Jim’s hand tightened on the handles of his duffel and his feet wanted to shift but they were frozen too and he wasn’t _breathing_ –

“Over here, lad! Let me take that bag, you look exhausted. You’re James Kirk for sure; you’ve got your mother’s curls!” 

The words almost didn’t register because usually that last statement ended with ‘your father’s hair’ or ‘your father’s eyes’ or ‘your father’s face’. No one had ever recognised him via Winona. Not even Winona. 

Except, this man had. 

Jim breathed. 

“It’s nice to meet you, sir.” The honorific slipped out without his consent, and he didn’t want this man to remind him of Frank’s eternal, futile crusade to get Jim to respect him. But it hadn’t felt anything like that. It felt natural. This man had shown kindness, so far, so respect in turn was only fair. Jim was proud of this deduction of his own motives and managed a small returning smile. 

“And it’s nice to meet _you_!” Jordan declared in his chipper tone as he took Jim’s bag from him with a light shoulder clasp. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice Jim’s tiny flinch. “We’re not blood relatives - as you know, your mother’s half-sister is my wife - but I’d like it if you called me Uncle Dan all the same. None of that ‘sir’ business, always makes me look around for the fancy suit you’re really talking to.” 

Ah, Jim knew this social cue. 

“Of course, Uncle Dan. I’m Jim.” 

“Jim,” Uncle Dan parroted with a satisfied air and led him outside at a brisk pace. “Excellent. They haven’t got a public transport system yet, but we can carpool to our sector and walk the rest of the way. That lets me introduce you to your new home! Oh right, don’t want to miss our connection. It’s just over here, lad.” 

Thus began the best months of Jim’s life so far. 

It was a little surreal, to live with family that asked him how his studies were progressing, valued him simply for existing, and didn’t try to lock him into his room. The other shoe was always hanging overhead, but little by little, Jim adjusted and started anticipating the household needs. He went to the sector distribution centre to collect their week’s supplies before breakfast, just to see Aunt Lisa sigh in relief and get a light pat on a shoulder. 

Once, a machine meant to test the soil went haywire and Jim ran all the way to the sector centre to get the local engineer. All adults applying for the colony had to have some kind of experience that helped the whole; Uncle Dan was qualified, but his specialty was in plant genetics, not machines. When the engineer asked for a specific piece of equipment and Jim was already holding it out to her, Uncle Dan stared at him with dancing eyes. 

“Seems we won’t need to go running for Dr Vale for much longer! It’ll be Dr Kirk fixing things in no time!” he boomed with a jolly chuckle that had Jim blushing and fumbling the ultrasonic diagnosis tool. 

Communication was still sparse and regulated, restricted to emergency broadcasts, status updates, exchanges of experimental data, and teaching purposes. There were some three-hundred-fifty kids on Tarsus, some who had been there from the set-up stages, so there was a virtual learning environment and a few tutors who also worked part-time. At Jim’s education level it was mostly self-directed, allowing students to choose their interests and decide their own assignments. So long as the work was up to expected standard, and everyone attended a few virtual lectures a week, students were pretty much left to their own devices. They were expected to make use of the tutors and direct their interests towards the colony, but ultimately, they had free reign.

It was _exactly_ what Jim needed to thrive. 

His days were spent downloading info for his assignments and then reading it all, helping out on the farm with the little things, and looking after Amy when she had finished her own classes. Amy was seven and very opinionated. She liked dogs despite never having even seen one up close and tried incessantly to manipulate her parents into getting one. 

Every dinner, her parents would explain that the Tarsus ecosystem was still getting established and that something even as small as a dog might upset the whole thing. Every time, Amy would pretend to give in, and the next evening, she would have some other technique or a detailed plan to keep the dog in complete isolation from the outside world. Her parents would explain that keeping a dog in a containment unit in the house was cruel and that the dog wouldn’t be happy. Amy would nod decisively and then go back to her metaphorical drawing board. This cycle was obviously a routine, but Jim’s arrival added a new layer to Amy’s machinations that entertained the family for weeks. 

His nights were spent trying to subtly hack the planetary comm system and lying out in the fields, making up new constellations. His fascination with the stars, buried for quite a while, bloomed into obsession. Astronomy and the mechanics of space featured heavily in his assignments – he had never before had as high a score that he hadn’t inserted into the system himself. On his back, resting against overturned earth or the weird, ubiquitous lilac grass, Jim looked at those pinpricks twinkling away and sometimes found his arm stretching up without his instruction, as if he could caress them or scoop them down onto his palm. 

A few times a month, the ion cloud surrounding the planet got overcharged with solar energy and sent light shows deep into the night. It was like an aurora, except it was redder and much, much larger. It wasn’t lines, like Jim had seen pictures of on Earth. It was sheets of light, overlapping and producing spectacular gradients into orange or light pink. Sunsets were nothing special on Tarsus, but those evenings with the ion cloud, Jim understood why there were so many pictures of the sun’s daily lightshow on the net. There was something awe-inducing about such natural beauty. 

In true human fashion, it was named the Fog. There was nothing like belittling an amazing phenomenon of the universe to fit it into human comprehension and make them feel less utterly insignificant. At least when someone referred to the Fog it wasn’t misunderstood; there was no natural occurrence of fog – small ‘f’ – since the necessary atmospheric conditions couldn’t be reached anywhere on Tarsus. 

The Fog was also the cause for such limitations on communication. It took a dedicated relay of shielded satellites to pierce the ionised layer, so there were no frivolous messages allowed. One message to one comm address every month per person. There was even a schedule for uploading the message to the planetary intranet, so as not to overwhelm the still-developing system. 

The five-month anniversary of Jim’s arrival on Tarsus heralded a change in leadership and a change in Tarsus itself. 

Firstly, there were a few notices on the intranet that next month’s harvest would be the one to make Tarsus self-sufficient, finally. No more packages from Earth or Starfleet. They were on their own for sixth months Earth calendar (7 Tarsus months), until the next shipment of essentials and equipment. An addendum noted that a fungal infection had ruined a field in a sector across the planet from Jim’s, but that silos could cover what had been lost, no problem. 

Secondly, the council voted on a Governor and a Dr Arnold Kodos became the most powerful man on Tarsus. Originally, the Governor position was to be rotated through the council, to avoid the pitfalls of a narrowed focus. It was an experiment in itself, to see if such a leadership style was viable. However, bit by bit, the members of the council next in line fell to ‘accidents’. This wasn’t broadcasted; Jim found out through fine-combing the supply reports. He had been on the hunt for spare parts that he might make use of, but he noticed when his alerts went off around the same time every four days for a supplementary note that just gave initials, an ID number and a time of death. After the third one, it was too regular to ignore. 

Kodos had talked to Jim before, was the thing. The man had told the gathered virtual lecture hall that they should be proud of their education – no one on Earth could say that they had such ready access to so many well-educated and knowledgeable individuals. He told them to study hard and reach for their full potential. Children were the future, he said. 

Then, a few hours later, Jim had gotten a message that Dr Kodos would like to talk with him. Jim, wary but excited, accepted the video and spent twenty minutes talking to Kodos about his latest projects. His speculations on how the difference in their sun’s properties would influence crop growth was of special interest to the Governor. Jim had prattled on a little about wavelengths and photosynthetic efficiency, during which Kodos had nodded sternly and seemed to have actually _listened_. Jim was informed that he was an intelligent boy, that his work had value and to keep it up. 

Jim couldn’t lie to himself and say it didn’t make him glow for the rest of the day. Brutal honesty, remember? 

His work had value. Said to his face, even.

When Jim matched the IDs to the intranet profiles of council members, he felt a shiver go down his spine that had nothing to do with the mild breeze coming in through the open window. His breath came quick and he had to sit down abruptly. The padd clattered to the floor, sliding out of numb hands. 

There was a ringing in his ears that was possibly the echo of a dropped shoe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun. Dun. DUUUNNNNNNN. 
> 
> The next chapter is going to be hell, though, fair warning.


End file.
